“Are you all right, Mary? Oh, you’re singing. What did Mum have to say to you?”
“Nothing important. Just…something nice.”
“Mary, stop being mysterious. You know that I know all about you.”
“Not everything, Justin. You are still young. I know things you can never imagine.” She smiles at him. “Now, go to Zakira’s.”
56
Mary Tendo
Today is Christmas Day. It is a great day. The snow is still falling like mist in London. I think the sun is shining on Kampala. Soon we are going home to Uganda. God has smiled on his servant, Mary. Katonda Mulundi. He is really good.
£3,005.75! I have earned myself a small fortune. In every way I have been successful. There is a firm bulge of money under my carpet. I have counted it with my friend Charles, and we smiled as we reached £1,000, then £2,000, but the number kept rising, and when we got to £3,000,1 whooped with joy and danced on the landing. Over nine million Ugandan shillings! Soon the money will fly back with us to Kampala.
Before Vanessa returns, in three days, I shall be gone. She will learn to be a grandmother on her own. She is very lucky. Her grandson is a wonder. He looks a little like Trevor, and a little like Justin, and a lot like Zakira, except for his hair. And the colour of his skin is like shiny pink roses. He does not look white as old maize, like Vanessa. He is chubby, not skinny. His face is sweet and round. He cries like rain, and then stops in an instant. He does not screech and wail, like his grandmother.
And yet he looks clever, as his grandma does, and he has little bandy legs, like her, and busy, wriggly hands and ringers. Soon he will be playing with his mother’s amber necklace, which his father used to wear, when he was lonely. I think that the baby will make Vanessa happy. For the moment they call him Abdul Trevor. (I hope it is a joke; it is a very silly name. But the baby will make them more sensible.) Justin says they will welcome his mother home. Zakira will cook a big meal for her. Little Abdul Trevor will entertain her. Vanessa too shall have her party.
I am happy for her, since yesterday. For God has smiled on his servant, Mary. I have been blessed, I am full to the brim.
My happiness makes me want to sing, although I know I have a squawking voice, worse than mouse-birds squabbling in the mango tree. And it makes me want to shout, and then I shush myself.
I am so lucky I am almost afraid. The last shall be first, the least have most. I thought my fruit had returned to dust. Now I have been blessed, I have been renewed. Katonda anjagalanyo. Praise God!
Something I am holding safe under my rib-cage. Something that makes me hug myself, hard, and yet I must be gentle with myself.
It is almost too precious to share with anyone, although Charles knows, and his eyes became moist, something I had never seen before. He brushed the wet away, and said it was a fly. But he could not speak, and he kissed my belly.
And now I must get up, and walk around the house, this big strange house I have been living in, with its books, and its pictures, and its piles of paper, its dust, and its shadows, and its photographs, its heavy old radiators making the air warm, because the sun does not shine on England. I walk around, and I think about it all. I walk upstairs, slowly, and down again. I walk into Vanessa’s sitting room. There are so many Christmas cards, maybe a hundred, although Vanessa does not have many friends, but these people are so rich that to send a card is nothing, and perhaps these people do not really like her.
Today I like her. Today I nearly love her, although it might be different if she were here. But if she were here, I would have to tell her, and I am almost sure that Vanessa would kiss me, as she did at the airport, when I did not expect it, and I know I hugged her, as the planes flew over. When we do not think, we like each other. And maybe thinking does not always matter.
I have discovered why I felt sick before. When I came to England, I was already pregnant.
I was not being poisoned by the air of London.
I was not being poisoned by Vanessa.
I, Mary Tendo, am pregnant again.
My friend the accountant is kind and clever, though he is no good at family planning (but he just smiles and says the condom was faulty, and it is true that many condoms are faulty in Kampala). It was he who noticed that my body was different, that my nipples were larger, that I had a new belly. And then we found a chemist, the only chemist still open in this part of London, and bought the test, which was very expensive, but worth each penny, since it told us good news.
My friend the accountant is completely happy. “How many shall we have? Three, four?”
He doesn’t understand that one is a miracle. It is a world of change: from nothing to something. It is the future, leading us out of the past.
And there is something else that he does not understand. “Now you will no longer think about Jamie.” Of course, he says this because he loves me. He wants me to think about him and the baby.
I do think about them, and my heart swells with joy, but still, every day, I think about Jamie. I shall think about Jamie every day of my life. Till I know where he is, I shall carry him with me.
I have sent Charles to the kitchen to check on the chicken. He is very pleased that I’m cooking a chicken. Perhaps he thinks I have killed it for him. But in fact I took it from Vanessa’s freezer.
We are watching the television together. Soon we are going to see the Queen. It is a long time since I have seen her. Perhaps she will be thin and small, like Vanessa.
It is Christmas Day. It is the best day. It is the first of many great days. I took my friend the accountant to church, and we sat together, and looked at the stable, and he was happy because of the baby. “Mary, we will call him our English baby.”
I’m not sure that the English will call him that. In any case, he was conceived in Kampala. I am happy to be having a Ugandan baby.
I always wanted a brother for Jamie, but it is too late for them to play together. I do not say this to my kabito. I shall not shed a tear on Christmas Day. I think he will know his brother in heaven. Perhaps I will see them run to each other. And all the trees will be in flower.
But now Charles is coming through from the kitchen. He is bringing the chicken, steaming hot. It smells of baked salt and lemons and spices. I learned this recipe from Zakira. After lunch we are going to see Abdul Trevor.
I am very hungry. The food is delicious. Charles opens a bottle of champagne. When I told him to take the wine from the fridge, he said “We shall buy our own wine, Mary, I have changed enough money, I am not a pauper,” and I agreed, we are not paupers, we have enough money, and so forth, et cetera. But still, Vanessa would want us to have it. On the phone, she told me to ‘help myself. I raise my glass to her: “Cheers, Vanessa.” (I hope Dom Perignon is a good make. I think she would not mind — it is old, it is ‘Vintage’, indeed the date on the bottle is 1990, so she will be glad that we have drunk it.)
And now the TV plays the national anthem. Charles starts to get up; he is fond of the Queen: but the plate on his lap spills a little gravy, and so he smiles and sits down again. They do not play all of it, just a little. Our minds turn towards the Ugandan national anthem. In our country, we play the whole anthem. “We are walking together down the road of education, marching towards a better Uganda…”